Three events this week!

Hello friends! This week is a busier one for me. Tomorrow, October 13, I'm speaking on a panel about self-publishing along with my husband, Gary. The Lace Reader started off as a self-published book, plus we own an independent software publishing company. Looking forward to having our brains picked! October 14 I'll be in Andover at the Andover Bookstore. I'll be speaking about The Map of True Places. You get more information about this event here.

And finally, on October 16, I'll be in Boston for the Boston Book Festival, which is held on Copley Square. My event will be taking place at 4:30PM in Rabb Lecture Hall, which is in the Johnson Building of the Boston Public Library. I'll be joining Joanna Smith Rakoff and Ann Hood to talk about the webs of relationships in our books. Henriette Lazaridis Power will host. The BBF is the largest literary festival in New England! If you can make it to the Boston area to join in on this event, you won't regret it!

An event on September 25 in Marshfield Hills, MA

On Saturday from 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm the North River Arts Society Writers Workshop will be hosting me in their Writer Series. I'll give a reading, and discuss my writing process as well as my books. It's going to be a fantastic time and I'd love to have you there to join me! The event open to the public and will be held in G.A.R. Hall at 157 Old Main Street in Marshfield Hills. If you can't make it, be sure to get out and enjoy this glorious weekend!

A very busy weekend full of Mockingbird madness!

Dear friends, Is it officially fall yet? The trees are beginning to turn colors in Salem. I love it here this time of season. I have a mighty busy weekend ahead of me which I'd like to share with you, since all of things are carrying fair amounts of fabulousness.

The Salem Literary Festival will be taking place this weekend, September 17-19, 2010 in Salem, MA. On Friday night (tonight) at 7pm I'll be hosting the Opening Night Celebration with Lily King. I'll announce the winner of the First Salem Literary Festival Writing Contest, which you don't want to miss. On Sunday the 20th from 10am-6pm in Derby Square there will be  Mockingbird Marathon, which I'll be hosting. Grab a coffee at Jaho and come listen! Or participate! I have some friends of mine coming from Manhattan to join me. I'd love to have you there.

On Saturday, September 18th, the Boston Public Library will be doing an Author Talk and Movie: 50th Anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird. Katherine Hall Page and I will be chatting about how the book impacted our lives (and writing lives). After we talk there will be a brief break and signing, and then the movie will be shown. The whole thing begins at 1pm and goes on until 4:30pm. Should be a blast!

Sincerely,

Brunonia

Writer UnBoxed Post

Some time ago I was interviewed by a fabulous woman named Therese Walsh. When Therese asked me to write a blog post for Writer Unboxed, I was so thrilled to be asked! Today, my first post for Writer UnBoxed went up. If you haven't heard of Writer UnBoxed, or if you haven't already spent some time poking around that blog, you really should. It's one of the good ones in my opinion -- lots of interesting publishing people and writers with interesting things to say. I was flattered to be asked to join them. You can check out Writer Unboxed through the link here.

Have a wonderful weekend! I'm in Boston this morning -- the weather is gorgeous!

Breakfast in Cape Cod Anyone?

I'll be in Hyannis this Friday, July 9th at the Cape Code Writers Conference Breakfast with the Authors. The event will be at the Cape Codder Resort in Hyannis starting at 9:30AM. Authors Spencer Quinn and Lynn Kiele Bonasia will be there with me. Please come if you're in the area. Click here for all the details

Two events in Massachusetts this week!

Tonight, at 6PM, I'll be at the Hilton Center in Salisbury, MA. We'll be discussing The Lace Reader, and I'll also be there to sign books and read an excerpt from The Map of True Places. A little bit of everything! Thanks to the Salisbury Public Library for inviting me. Then, on Friday, June 25th, I'll be at the Dennis Public Library in Dennis Port, MA for their Author's Friday series from 2-3PM. I'll be talking about my journey as a writer and about The Map of True Places.

Click on the links above for more information about these events. Hope to see you there, North Shore-ers!

Lost in Translations: Fanny Pack, Little Nose, and Turbostress

Translations are funny. Really funny. Even English to English translation can be amusing (meaning of course, American English to British English). In The Lace Reader, I initially had my main character (who had just undergone major surgery and was unable to lift so much as a purse) wearing a fanny pack. Geeky and unfashionable at best. At worst, things move into the borderline pornographic. Anyone in the UK will understand what I'm talking about, but I will resist the urge to elaborate. Suffice it to say that there are certainly meanings that are lost in translation, as well as those that are gained, intentional or not. I'm relieved to say that the fanny pack was banished from both editions. In Italy, they changed the title of the book from The Lace Reader to The Lying Reader. The reason was simple enough. Lace has a few connotations in Italy, one of the best known has to do with a mafia bribe. My Italian publisher decided it was better to change the book's title than to have it land in the wrong genre. I think they made the right decision.

One of my Chinese translators asked me about the significance of a character's name: Beezer. I told her there was no significance at all, Beezer was simply a childhood nickname. The translator then had a decision to make. She could either translate the name into an equally insignificant Chinese childhood nickname, or she could use the closest translation to the word that she could find: Little Nose.  Naming the character Little Nose would certainly render a descriptive new characteristic to the boy. She wanted me to make the decision, but, in the end, I left the choice up to her. Would a character named Little Nose be more or less likeable in China? What would it mean to readers? I had no idea. And I have no idea what she decided since, sadly,  I am incapable of reading any dialect of Chinese.

We are now in the process of translating my second book, The Map of True Places, and I am working for the second time with one of my favorite translators, Elke Link, from Germany. Actually, she is doing all the work, I am simply fielding the occasional question. In my new book, the character's middle name is Trouble, and the initial T takes on special meaning in the story. Unable to find a suitable translation that began with the letter T, Elke suggested the word Turbostress. I was immediately delighted. Turbostress means exactly what it sounds like it means, and it describes a state I have found myself in for the last few years as I have tried to launch my writing career. In all fairness, it's probably a perfect description for the state I have found myself in all of my adult life, but that is another blog post for another day.

I'm heading out now to Denver on the final leg of my book tour for The Map of True Places. I'll be at one of my favorite bookstores of all time, The Tattered Cover, in Denver (2526 East Colfax Ave) at 7:30 tomorrow (Thursday) night. Can't wait! Just walking into that wonderful building removes any trace of travel turbostress.  If you're around the Denver area tomorrow night, please join us.